


Bad Day Served 2 Ways

by jonesyslug



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, Drug Use, We're Having A Bad Time, character study or some shit?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 23:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20938553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonesyslug/pseuds/jonesyslug
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak has a quiet night in with his wife. Richie Tozier has a loud night out on a talk show.They both go to bed feeling equally crummy.





	Bad Day Served 2 Ways

**Author's Note:**

> hey! this is just scratching the surface of some headcanons/ideas I have about Richie and Eddie as individuals in their adult lives. Just things about them living through the same shitty relationships they had with their parents as kids, but with new people filling the roles, and the ways they cope with it now that they're adults. Rest easy, though, this takes place in a universe where they kill It and end up together, helping and healing each other! But for now: i beg your strength.

Eddie's hands shook as he uncapped the pill bottle. He tipped it and let three small blue pills fall into his palm. He tilted his head back and let the pills fall into his mouth, then he started to chew. 

It was a vile, bitter taste, but he knew that soon enough it'd hit and his hands would stop shaking and he'd stop feeling like his skull was rattling in his head and he'd be able to breathe. God, his whole life was just waiting to be able to breathe again. 

He pulled a little bottle of mouthwash out of his medicine bag and swished some around his mouth, then swallowed it, trying to get rid of the awful taste. It lingered, now covered slightly in mint and burning alcohol. He turned on the sink and cupped his hands under the faucet, drinking water quickly. There was a loud knock on the bathroom door, forceful enough that the door shook. Eddie grabbed his inhaler from his bag quickly and backed into the corner of the small bathroom. He needed to breathe, he needed to _ fucking _breathe. 

He raised the inhaler to his lips and took a puff off it. He just wanted to stop the tightening in his chest, the ever-present pressure inside him rising up and choking him. 

"Eddie!" Myra called, knocking on the door with more force. 

"What?" Eddie yelled. 

"What the _ hell _ are you doing, Eddie?" 

"I'm in the bathroom, Myra! Can I not have some privacy in the bathroom? Jesus!" He breathing was getting ragged again. He took another puff off his inhaler. 

He heard Myra grumbling, but couldn't make out what she was saying. 

"_ Fine, _Eddie." She said, finally, and her footsteps retreated. 

Eddie let out a shaky sigh and let himself slip down the wall until he was sitting on the floor next to the sink. Those pills were going to hit soon, he knew it, he _ knew, _but it wasn't soon enough. 

* * *

"Richie! Richie?" 

Richie hummed and ignored the beating on the bathroom door. He gave himself a big, toothy grin in the mirror. His eyes looked absolutely dead. _ Kubrick Stare. _

"Richie, you're on in _ ten!" _

"I'll be out in a minute! Fuck!" 

Richie pulled his flask out of his jacket's inner pocket and downed what was left. His manager would have thrown a fit about him drinking so much, but, Jesus Christ himself couldn't have stopped him, at this point. 

He combed his hair back with his fingers and looked at himself. 

_ You are falling apart, Tozier. _

Someone was pounding at the door again. He groaned angrily and opened it. 

"I'm done jerking off, someone get me a vodka soda!" He yelled, as he pushed past his manager, not listening to a word he said as he chased him down the hall. 

"-charming, and most importantly, relatable, becau-" 

A young girl finally appeared with a cup and held it out to him, timidly. 

"Yeah, thanks, kid." He said, taking it and chucking the drink down the hatch. He handed the glass to the next person he saw, not caring what their actual function was. 

"Richie, you've got to-" 

Richie straightened his jacket as he looked out onto the stage. "_ Behave, _I know. Jesus, you sound like my mother…" 

Someone pointed at Richie, then from the stage, the show's host asked the audience to welcome him. He winked at his manager on the way out. He was absolutely _ not _going to behave. 

* * *

Eddie came down the stairs, slowly. Myra was in the kitchen, slamming cabinets shut. 

The medicine was well in his system now and his voice didn't shake when he turned into the room. "Myra, are you looking for something?" 

She turned and gave him a pointed look, then went back to the cabinets. 

"You moved my vodka again, Eddie." She said, matter-of-factly. 

"No, I didn't, Myra." He said, closing his eyes. 

"Then at least help me find it, because it's not in here." Myra said, walking past him into the living room. She sat down and turned on the TV, flipping through channels. 

"Yes, dear." He said, skirting back up the stairs. He was fairly certain it was on her nightstand. When he got to their bedroom, he found he was correct, retrieved it, then returned it to Myra without another word. He merely sat beside her on the couch. She liked for him to watch television with her. 

"Tonight's guest, Richard Tozier," the host said, looking out at the audience, then back at his guest. "Now, Richie, you're about to start a book tour, is that right?" 

Eddie scoffed. "That guy wrote a book?" 

* * *

"Yeah!" Richie said, to a burst of applause. 

"Now, what's this book about, Rich?" 

"You shorten my name every time you say it, is anyone else hearing that? Next he's gonna be calling me 'Rrr'." Richie said, with a big laugh. 

But the laughter in the audience was sporadic. Richie's manager could have slapped him. They'd written him plenty of good jokes, why couldn't he ever just stick with them? 

Richie cleared his throat. "The book is about what any middle aged comedian's book is about, it's about how I was weird in school and I jerked off to The X-Files but if you be_ lieve _in yourself you can tell jokes in front of drunk people once a week, too."

The host laughed politely. "And what are you doing on this book tour?" 

Richie gave him a weird look. He wanted another drink. He scratched the side of his face. 

"Uh, book tour stuff, dude! What do you mean?" Richie said, a little incredulously. "Signing books and reading passages and whatever the fuck." 

The whole place went dead silent for a moment, and then there was mad, feverish scrambling around. The host cleared his throat, then looked down the camera. 

"All right, it's time for a commercial break, we'll be back with Richie Tozier in just a moment." 

When the camera was off them, the host put his head in his hands. Richie still hadn't processed what was going on. 

"Do you know how much that's going to _ cost?" _The host hissed out from under his breath. 

"What?" 

"You just said _ fuck _on live, national television is what!" The host shouted, standing. "I knew you were going to be trouble! I didn't want to do this!" 

Richie craned his head around to look backstage. His manager was absolutely screaming his head off at anyone who passed by. 

"Oh, _ Jesus." _

"Finally, he _ gets _it!" 

Richie massaged his temples. Asking for another drink now would not go over well. 

* * *

Myra and Eddie sat aghast in the orange light of a Tide commercial, processing what had just happened. Eddie's mouth curled up on one side, and then he started laughing. He had no idea why, but somewhere in his brain, the thought _ 'serves the fucker right!' _was bouncing around. He didn't think he'd ever seen this guy's stand up before. Or maybe he had. Something about it felt familiar. 

"_ Eddie…" _Myra hissed. 

"What? It's not like you get to see that every day." 

"That was horrible." 

Eddie wanted to retort "_ If it was so horrible, why aren't you changing the channel?", _but he held his tongue, and got a reign on his giggles. 

They sat through several more commercials in silence, Eddie incredibly thankful that his medication was humming steadily through his body and making him feel calm and weightless, or he might have said something, and he and Myra would be fighting right now. 

That was the last thing he needed. 

When the show came back, Richie was not sitting beside the host anymore. 

"In light of recent events, we've decided to let Richie show off one of his lesser known skills tonight, playing the clarinet!" 

The camera panned over to the band where Richie was sitting, looking absolutely miserable. The band played an intro riff that ended with Richie blowing out a sour note on the clarinet. 

"I did have something else prepared for you, Rich_ ie." _The host said, pointing at a little screen. "We went on Reddit and found a very interesting thread about weird celebrity encounters, and you popped up on it a few times!" 

They didn't cut back to Richie for a reaction, like Eddie expected. 

* * *

Richie was frowning, angrily, having been banished to sit by the band leader for the rest of the evening, or else leave the show altogether, which he would have been _ more than happy _to do, but his manager hadn't even given him the option. 

"Here's my favorite one!" The host said, pointing at the screen. He was gleeful, ready to show a precident of bad behaviour from Richie, so everyone would know his hands were clean. Richie had seen this shit before. 

"This girl here says, 'I was a PA at a comedy club he performed at. I'm used to comedians getting drunk and hitting on me, but the weirdest line I ever got was from Richie Tozier. He told me I looked like his sister.'"

The audience was rolling and Richie scowled. He grabbed the band leader's mic. "Hey, if I was _ hitting on _ her, I would have told her she looked like your mom!" He slurred into the mic. The band leader grabbed it back, but they had already cut the power to it. 

The host laughed awkwardly, then turned back to the audience. "He's a real gem, isn't he? Well, too bad for him, we have another guest tonight," 

* * *

Myra huffed and changed the channel. 

"I just _ knew _ something like that was going to happen. I just _ knew _it. You can tell he drinks too much." She said, taking a sip of her vodka rocks. 

Eddie looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Wait, you know who that guy is?" 

"Yes. He's been on the talk show circuit for a week, and anyway, we watched his special on Amazon a few weeks back." 

"Oh, right." Eddie _ sort of _ remembered that. He was _ very _surprised that Myra did, since now that he could recall, it had been a particularly tense night, and she had been drinking quite a bit. 

"I can't believe he did a 'your mom' joke…" Eddie mumbled. "What year does he think it is?" 

"I know." Myra said, rolling her eyes. "Honestly, he has _ no _self respect." 

* * *

The next commercial break, they had Richie leave. After he'd grabbed a mic, they decided he was too much of a liability. 

_ I could have told them that. _He thought bitterly, as he popped the tab on a beer in the back of his limo. 

"We are in for a world of pain, Trashmouth." His manager said, briskly. 

"You know, it's really fucking hard to take you seriously when you call me that." Richie said, with a laugh. 

"I told you, you were going to have to behave. This is basic cable! Grannies are watching this shit! You can curse like that when you make it to HBO or whatever the fuck your endgame is here, Tozier, but right now you're still a pretty small fry." 

"I sold out every night last week!" 

"Yeah, and it could all be gone in two fucking seconds, you know that?!" 

"Yes! You tell me so every day!"

"Then _ act like it!" _

Richie grumbled and slumped in his seat, taking a big sip of beer. "Can you believe that Reddit thing he read about me? That made me sound so fucking creepy." 

The manager glared at him. "Did that really happen, Rich?" 

Richie sputtered. "I d- I wasn't fucking _ hitting _on her! She really did look like my sister!" 

The manager rolled his eyes. "Christ, Richie…" he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

"I'm so _ fucking _ sorry, I'll never talk to anyone again!" Richie said, throwing his hands up. "You guys can reprogram me and send me out again after my lobotomy and I'll fucking play patty cake with every late night _ drip _ who just wants to embarrass me, and I'll take it like a real _ god damn champ, _because that's what you want, isn't it?" 

"Yes! Because that's your fucking job!" 

"No it's not! My job is to tell jokes!" 

"This is part of that job, Rich! You have to do this part if you want to keep doing the other part!"

"I am too sober for this argument…" 

His manager scoffed. "Richie Tozier, the day I see you sober is the day I start going to church." 

* * *

Eddie hadn't even noticed when Myra turned off the television. His eyes had been closed for a while now, just letting himself be carried out to sea on the tide of Xanax rolling through his body. He honestly thought, really, he could use a few more… they were losing their edge now, maybe. His heart rate was ticking back up. 

"Eddie." 

He opened his eyes. Yes, definitely needed more, just the sound of her voice sent his pulse pounding through him so that he could feel it in his teeth. 

"It's time for bed, Eddie." 

Eddie stood up and took her hand, relieved his wasn't shaking. 

"Yes, dear." 

Eddie took an especially long time brushing his teeth so that Myra would grow bored and leave him alone in the bathroom. He picked up his weekly pill organizer, and dumped Friday out into his hand. Two more little blue pills for bed, same as every night, but… he swallowed the handful of pills with a glass of water, then reached into his medicine bag again for the bottle. One more for the road. 

He couldn't chew them, this time, because Myra would kiss him and then she would _ taste _ that horrible, battery acid taste and _ know, _and if she knew it was all over. He was just going to have to wait for these to kick in. 

He crawled into bed. Myra had the television on. Eddie sometimes wondered why she ever bothered to watch TV in the den if she was just going to get in bed and watch more, but he wasn't going to bring it up, tonight. 

"G-goodnight, Myra. I love you." 

"Goodnight, Eddie." 

* * *

Richie's manager had kicked him out of the limo a block before they made it to his hotel, because he _ "Couldn't stand the sight of him" _and Richie didn't even care. They had just been yelling, anyway, and his throat was sore. 

When he finally got up to his hotel room, he checked his phone. He had a text from his sister. _ Call me. _

He sighed and did as he was told. 

"Rachel… please don't say anyth-" 

"You looked like dad, tonight." 

Richie groaned loudly and flopped back onto the bed. "That is absolutely the last thing I wanted to hear." 

Rachel laughed. "The last thing _ I _wanted to hear is that my brother is hitting on 20 year olds by telling them they look like me!" 

"I wasn't hitting on her." He said, through his teeth. His chest was going to explode. _ That _little story could all be absolutely obliterated by one tiny fact, but that would definitely blow up in his face even more, and honestly just thinking of it now had made his stomach churn. 

"I know, I know." Rachel said. "Seriously I'm calling because-" she stopped.

"Because what, Rachel? I'm exhausted and I have a migraine, I can't talk all night."

"Just… it's really hard to watch you sometimes, Richie." 

"We don't exactly write my jokes with you in mind, Rach." 

There was a long pause. 

"You know that's not what I mean." 

"Hey, shouldn't you be worrying about your kid right now instead of your kid brother? _ It's 10 PM, do you know where your children are?" _

Rachel sighed. "She's 4 years old. She's been in bed since 8. And for your information, it's one AM." 

"Shit." Richie's head throbbed. "I really have to go, Rachel, I've got a flight in a few hours." 

"Okay. Be safe, Rich-" 

Richie hung up the phone and dropped it onto the bed side table. 

He rolled off the bed and opened the minifridge. 

"A little hair of the dog that bit me!" He sang, taking out a small bottle of Irish cream and climbing into bed. 

"Just my luck!" He said to himself, in a stupid Irish accent. "All the world was watchin'!" 


End file.
